Introduction
Power grid corruption occurs when a mod that alters the power grid — such as a workshop object mod that adds new wired lighting — has been disabled or deleted and the player continues on the save either by accident or on purpose. It can also occur when placing wires improperly, disabling powered objects (like the vault pieces) with Place Anywhere, or causing power glitches using “wire tricks”.
It is the silent destroyer of saves. The “Scrap” Crash occurs while scrapping in the workshop after corruption of the settlement power grid has occurred.
Once power grid corruption occurs, there is no way to salvage the save on consoles and users will not know the corruption is there until it is too late and the crashing has begun. PC players have Power Grid Tools, a F4SE mod, that will help; however, it is better to forego removing mods in the middle of a playthrough so that ticking timebombs like this do not happen.
You can avoid game save corruption by:
- Remembering that mods are DLC and shouldn’t be removed in the middle of a play-through (especially new settlements and workshop object mods such as Creative Clutter, Dead Wasteland, etc)
- Avoiding disabling powered objects or the workshop workbench with Place Anywhere
- Avoiding mods that allow you to move the workshop bench
- Avoiding mods that overload the grid, like the abandoned mod Settlement Electricity Overhaul (SEO)
- Avoiding using “wire tricks”